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Welcome to the cult of Rogan

He's America's stoner big brother. The type to put you in a headlock one minute and share a joint the next. He's a comedian, former MMA fighter and host of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

He's made a name for himself with interviews of bizarre and often unlikeable characters, and regularly racks up millions of hits on YouTube (or wherever you get podcasts). He describes himself as "basically a socialist," but made recent news when he said he'd rather vote for President Donald Trump than Joe Biden.

Love him or hate him, Rogan is an enigma. Some essential episodes:

Episode #1284: Graham HancockRogan interviews legendary pseudo-historian Graham Hancock about the evidence of lost civilizations many thousands of years before we knew civilization existed. Hancock points to relatively new evidence of humans in the American continents well before the history books show. The two dive into conspiracy theories and, of course, hallucinogens. Classic Rogan.

Episode #1255: Alex JonesThis is objectively the best podcast episode of any show ever. Rogan interviews right-wing nutjob and InfoWars host Alex Jones in a marathon five-hour episode. At first, Jones sounds like he wants to apologize for his belief that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. He fails, miserably, and goes into some other crazy shit: "So we're on this planet in the third dimension which is a launchpad to all the other dimensions below and above. These wizards are taking drugs in these temples and interfacing with these palantirs, these crystal balls — which aren't really crystal balls, it's their psychic focus of interdimensional connection while they're on drugs looking in a glass." You won't find this stuff anywhere else.

Episode #1191: Peter BoghossianThis was my introduction to Rogan and... oof. Rogan interviews the professors who published a hoax research paper, "Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon," in a feminist academic journal. It was a biting satire of how identity studies walls themselves off from outside criticism. Listen at your own risk.

Episode #1169: Elon MuskRogan and Musk discuss potential dangers of artificial intelligence, among other topics. (Listen to a more recent Musk interview from May 7 where he explains the baffling name of his newborn son, X Æ A-12.)